Another New One...

Details: 11 November 2011

Recently, we added another town to our St. Andrew Mobile Food Pantry program: Minden.

For those who are not familiar with this relatively new program, we at Catholic Social Services decided that since many families across the Diocese of Lincoln cannot come to one of our fixed food pantries, we needed to figure out a way we could serve those living outside the areas served by them. Since we have a fleet of large box trucks, we decided we would, on a regular basis, purchase food and truck it to towns across southern Nebraska. Since the inception of this program, we have been slowly adding cities to the list.

At each mobile pantry, we work with the local pastor and parish volunteers for the distribution of the food pantries in locations such as the parish hall. So far it has been a huge success and is growing.

A few weeks ago, our St. Andrew Mobile Food Pantry traveled to Minden to serve needy families in Kearney County. Father Nicholas Baker greeted us with open arms, along with a group of parish volunteers and 25 students from Minden High School. We were set up for the distribution of canned goods, frozen meats, and lots of bakery items in record time. Father Baker told me, "I am amazed at how much food was given away!"

We served 75 families, totaling 248 individuals, at this first-time Mobile Pantry in Minden. Families were very grateful for the additional boxes of food. A young mom with three children was especially grateful. With tears in her eyes she told Christine Cook, "You have no idea what this means to me my husband and our kids. My husband’s income is all we have and his hours got cut several weeks ago. We really needed the extra help, thank you so much!"

It wasn’t long ago a tearful elderly woman and her middle-aged daughter told another volunteer at another site, "Thank you so much! We literally did not know where our next meal was coming from!" Stories like this abound, one of the reasons our volunteers keep on helping.

As of the time of this writing, we are now serving Ashland, Auburn, Crete, David City, Falls City, Geneva, Fairbury, Hebron, Minden, Tecumseh, Wahoo, Seward, Superior, Sutton, Harvard, Holdrege, Orleans and Imperial. In addition to these cities, we have made plans to add Shelby to the list in 2012.

I would like to extend a special thanks to our benefactors who donate to Catholic Social Services so we can purchase the food for this sorely needed program, the pastors whose support is essential for its success, and our staff and our many volunteers from the parishes. Without them, this program would have failed at the onset.